"Die Blockchain ist den Weg aus der technischen Obskuranz über eine weitgehend abgeklungene Phase der utopisch-mystifizierenden Begeisterung hin zu etablierten Branchenlösungen gegangen. Blockchain basierte Kryptowährungen sind längst anerkannte und langsam auch institutionell genutzte Zahlungsmittel. Trotzdem scheinen sich Blockchain-Lösungen immer noch eher über ein Versprechen zu verkaufen, das ein soziales Bedürfnis – das des Vertrauens innerhalb von Systemen – befriedigen will. Ein Blick auf die Technizitäten der Blockchain jedoch erlaubt Einsichten in die Möglichkeit solcher technosozialer Versprechen und ihrer (Nicht-) Einlösbarkeit. Blockchain (...) has found its way out of technical obscurity via a largely faded phase of utopian-mystifying enthusiasm to established industry solutions. Blockchain-based crypto currencies have long been accepted as a means of payment and are tentatively being used institutionally as well. Nevertheless, Block- chain solutions still seem to sell a promise that seeks to satisfy a social need—that of trust within systems. A glance at the technicalities of Blockchain, however, allows insights into the possibility of such techno-social promises and their (non-)redeemability.". (shrink)

This paper investigates the distinction between determining and modifying expressions that played an important role in the Brentano School. The focus lies on how the distinction is applied to adjectives by Anton Marty and Kazimierz Twardowski. In ‘heavy gun’, ‘heavy’ plays a determining role: heavy guns are guns; in ‘fake gun’, ‘fake’ plays a modifying role: fake guns are no guns at all. According to Marty and Twardowski, when a modifying adjective is combined with a noun, it shifts the meaning (...) of the noun. This paper rejects this proposal and proposes a better account which was developed by Bernard Bolzano: the difference between determining and modifying adjectives must be understood in terms of how their meanings figure in meaning analyses of adjective-noun combinations. (shrink)

Philosophers often rely on the notion of conceptual containment and apply mereological terminology when they talk about the parts or constituents of a complex concept. In this paper, I explore two historical approaches to this general notion. In particular, I reconstruct objections Bernard Bolzano puts forward against a criterion that played a prominent role in the history of philosophy and that was endorsed, among others, by Leibniz. According to this criterion, a concept that represents objects contains all and only the (...) concepts that represent properties the objects must have in order to be represented by the former concept. Bolzano offers several counterexamples and arguments against the criterion. I argue that while some of them presuppose a strongly mereological understanding of containment, which Leibniz is not committed to, one of them also succeeds without relying on demanding mereological principles. (shrink)

Bernard Bolzano offers a criterion of individuation for ideas, according to which ideas are distinct if and only if they represent different objects or are composed differently. It fails to individuate ideas that are both simple and fail to represent, in particular syncategorematic ideas and logical constants. However, Bolzano also provides the means to close this gap. He suggests that we can distinguish ideas if they are not substitutable for each other in propositions, which we can, in turn, distinguish in (...) terms of their truth-values. This paper explicates this suggestion and develops it into an improved individuation criterion for ideas: ideas also are distinct if we cannot replace them for one another in propositions salva veritate. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the idea that in conceptual analysis we are in a substantial way concerned with revealing metaphysical grounds. I argue that a recent proposal fails, according to which we aim to reveal what complex concepts are grounded in. The notion ofcomposition, rather than that ofgrounding, is the best way to understand the intuitive hierarchy of concepts. In an analysis we reveal thecomponentsorpartsof complex concepts and their structure. Finally, I propose an alternative role for grounding in our (...) accounts of analysis: in analyses we reveal truths about the composition of concepts that serve as grounds for truths about theirfunctions, which are what we want to understand. (shrink)

We prove that every ω-categorical, generically stable group is nilpotent-by-finite and that every ω-categorical, generically stable ring is nilpotent-by-finite.

This article argues against scientistic arguments of the redundancy of religious belief structures due to the explicability of the physical world, as exemplified here by a discussion of the “popular science” of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. It is claimed that the root of belief in “sense” is in animation, rather than in cosmological creation myths. The paper displays that the ideal of the absolute is linguistically signified by the termini “survival” and “freedom” in human understanding. However, it does not (...) appear through human understanding as an illusion stemming from the illegitimate inference of a pantheistic spirit or prime mover. Instead, human reason builds an analytical understanding upon a fundamental instinct, which long predates human-level consciousness. Approaching the subject’s role in the physical world, the article displays that animation itself, as the primal form of awareness and agency, is the urge to overcome an inherent antagonism in the structure of being. It is argued that the cosmological argument is mirrored by an argument that has no strict theoretical cogency, but is likewise irreducible and irrefutable by science. Science investigates the object empirically but has limited explanatory capabilities when it comes to subjective being. (shrink)

The SVD ethnologist/ethnographer mostly known as Paul Schebesta (1887-1967) was often introduced in Czechoslovakia as “our Czech” Pavel Šebesta. Querying origins, selves and homelands, his own and in his writings (ethnography/travelogues/fiction on “dwarfs” in the “primeval forest”), this essay traces the multiplicity/borderlands/nomadism of Schebesta/Šebesta, also in his relation to the “Other,” a concept/distinction/border that is thus destabilized or blurred. Interweaving apparently separate questions about his life and scholarship, the essay finds continuities and mirroring across distance and otherness. Following-mirroring Šebesta/schebesta, we (...) recognize the familiar in the strange, Silesia/moravia in Malaya, the contemporary in the primeval, the “native” in the ethnologist, the head-hunter in the biological anthropologist. The essay’s motley style mirrors what has been described as his “jumbled” writing, “highly coloured … scarcely in consonance with the scientific material”; it reflects his nomadism, emphasis on “experiencing together,” and the conflict that he sensed between “theories” and “life, rhythm, poetry.”. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 57 Heft: 4 Seiten: 464-482.

Poté, co je ve studii podán obraz Humovy osobnosti na pozadí jeho doby, jsou v ní rozvíjeny následující teze: I. Smyslem a cílem veškerého Humova filosofování (zejména jeho popření ontologického statusu kategorií substance a kauzality a jeho teorie mravních citů) je připravit půdu pro skeptickou destrukci veškerých tvrzení týkajících se existence a přirozenosti Boží a pro zdůvodnění pojetí, v souladu s nímž může člověk žít mravně bezúhonným životem i bez jakékoliv opory v náboženském transcendentnu. II. Všechny silně nekonsistentní momenty Humovy (...) filosofie jsou sjednoceny (obvykle perfidně utajovaným) účelem, jímž je vyvrátit náboženství z kořene; právě z onoho vrcholného bodu "syntézy" lze uchopit jejich smysl a - zároveň také jinak neuchopitelnou jednotu Humovy filosofie. III. Popření ontologického statutu kategorie substance traktované v kontextu řešení problematiky teleologického důkazu Boží existence, rezultuje u Huma (takřka s železnou logikou) v anticipační nástin fundamentálních myšlenek evolučního přístupu a teorie samoorganizace, které s velkou pravděpodobností přímo ovlivnily pojetí Charlese Darwina. (shrink)

Przedmiotem artykułu jest pojęcie pamięci zbiorowej, rozpatrywanej przez pryzmat ‘historii przeżytej’ – występującej w dwu postaciach: ‘przeżytej w sensie przedmiotowym’ i ‘przeżytej w sensie treściowym’ – oraz ‘historii zobiektywizowanej’. Uwzględniając polskie kontrowersje wokół książek Jana Tomasza Grossa: Sąsiedzi. Historia zagłady żydowskiego miasteczka i Strach. Antysemityzm w Polsce tuż po wojnie, autor kwestionuje pojęcie jednolitej pamięci zbiorowej i jej normatywne roszczenia. Pamięć kolektywna i dominująca narracja historyczna są często przedmiotem manipulacji politycznych jako sposobu na potwierdzenie jedności społecznej poprzez wykluczenie cudzych wspomnień. (...) Pamięć o przeszłości jest w rzeczywistości podzielona między różne grupy społeczne i etniczne, które nigdy nie tworzyły spójnej jedności. Nie ma możliwości pogodzenia tych przeciwnych wspomnień; jedynym możliwym sposobem nadania pamięci zbiorowej kształtu pożądanego w porządku demokratycznym jest konfrontacja i negocjowanie tych rozbieżnych poglądów, czyli dokonywanie ‘transakcji dialogicznych’. (shrink)

This note argues that Ps.-Lyc. 874-6 alludes to Pind. Pyth. 6.7-14 and may, in turn, be pertinent as one of the intertexts of Hor. Carm. 3.30.1-5.

In this paper the current legislative landscape and the challenges researchers face in obtaining informed consent in acute situations are explored. In such situations, some current guidelines can be difficult or impossible to apply. Capacity should be formally assessed before consent is sought to ensure that vulnerable persons are neither inappropriately recruited to a study nor denied the opportunity to participate. However, there is little guidance in current legislation as to how this should be achieved. When the patient is considered (...) to be unable to provide prospective informed consent, other forms are sometimes permissible, although all have specific drawbacks. First, it is argued that a brief instrument, suitable for the acute situation, is needed to determine whether patients have the capacity to consent to clinical trials. Secondly, it is argued that there are areas of the informed consent process that require review, and ways that improvements could be made are suggested. (shrink)

A review of Daniel Salvatore Schiffer´s Le dandysme, dernier éclat d’héroïsme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010, 302 pp. ISBN 978-2-13-058227-4).